Page 4 of Bound and Branded

I was livid. More than that I felt reckless – something I never was. Something I could never afford to be. But my life was falling apart and he felt like a good target for my anger.

He caught me, grabbed hold of me and slammed me up against the side of that barn, hands tight around my wrists. It had felt like a fight.

And it had felt like sex, for all an eighteen-year-old virgin could know what sex felt like.

All that rage directed against me, the fierce control of his strength. The way his large hands had directed my movements. I felt powerless.

He could have done anything he wanted to me in that moment, and instead of fear I’d felt…

Turned on.

You get the hell out of here,he’d said.And give thanks that nobody got hurt, and that I’m not calling the police on you. You fucking brat.

His words stuck with me. And even now, they meld into my fantasies, twisting themselves up in my head and turning into something else.

Fucking brat.He said that to me while he moved his hand from my wrist to my throat…

And I get off on that memory. Every time. Every time I see him I feel an explosion of heat that’s not solely about hatred.

It fills me with shame. Then a deep sense of fear. It’s what’s been driving me the last few months. As pressure on the ranch has been building, it’s been pushing me toward the thing I’ve been avoiding figuring out about myself.

Instead of sleeping I open up The Club app, which has become the dirtiest of my dirty secrets. I’ve been going over and over my desires for a while now. Why every interaction I have with men leaves me so unsatisfied. I blame Caleb, actually. That interaction that we had when I was young. The way he held me, the way he used his strength against me. It’s like it broke something in me. Like it turned me into a monster that I don’t even recognize.

And it’s finally driven me to this.

There aren’t very many experienced Dominants in rural Oregon.

I’ve been considering actually experimenting with BDSM for a while. There’s no one I can talk to about it. Not here. All of myfriends would be utterly and completely scandalized, and then they’d be afraid.

For me, for my sanity. Afraid I’m like my mom because obviously she’s a slut and therefore I must be drawn toward slut behavior because of her.

I’d be lying if I said that didn’t get twisted up inside me sometimes. As far as I know, my mom’s thing isn’t kink—God, I never want to know what her thing is—but it seemed like it had more to do with just wanting to get away from my dad.

But I can’t deny that it puts me in a weird shame place. I tried. I tried to want a nice, normal guy who gave the potential of a nice, normal life and nice, normal sex and I blew that up three months ago.

After he proposed.

I panicked. Like a spooked horse trying to escape a barn.

I had felt like I loved John but then it just felt like more responsibility piled on top of everything I was already dealing with and I couldn’t bear it. I wanted to feel like someone could take care of me, which is a simultaneously terrifying thought since I’d have to trust them in order to do that, and I don’t trust anyone like that.

How can I?

Which is why this is a fantasy, though one I’ve been edging closer to making real. If I can pull the trigger.

My research has led me down a whole lot of rabbit holes and I’ve nearly leapt into a few really sketchy choices. I looked into physical sex clubs, but I don’t like the idea of doing anythingin frontof anyone. Plus, I would have to travel to a bigger city and that already feels scary given that I’ve so rarely been outside my hometown.

I want a little secret trouble. I don’t want big bad trouble where your body ends up floating in the Columbia River because you went for an orgasm and got serial killed instead. No thanks.

I’ve always been good. Because Ihaveto be. Because if I’m not good, then the ranch is going to fall apart. My parents were dissolute and irresponsible – though to give my dad his due, he’s still here.

The one time I ever misbehaved was when I sneaked onto Caleb’s land and nearly burned his barn to the ground. As misbehavior went, it was relatively spectacular.

It wasn’t BDSM club spectacular.

That’s how I ended up finding The Club app, during a desperate Google search that went something like How Do I Find a Dom Who Won’t Kill Me If I Also Don’t Want to Get Railed In Front of a Room Full of Strangers.

They really do have apps for everything.

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